One day after President Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election, Democrats raised $100 million through their primary fundraising platform, ActBlue. This information was revealed by Ryan Murphy, a developer at The Marshall Project, using a live tracker that monitors donations since ActBlue’s inception in 2004, although it is not an official tally.
On Sunday alone, the platform recorded contributions of $66.9 million for Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking a record day for fundraising in the 2024 election cycle. This surpassed the previous high of donations on September 30, 2020, coinciding with the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump.
The surge in donations on Sunday allowed ActBlue to reach a total of $14 billion raised since its establishment two decades ago. In contrast, its Republican counterpart, WinRed, which began receiving donations in late 2019, has raised approximately $4.3 billion, according to OpenSecrets.
ActBlue commented on X, formerly known as Twitter, saying, “We’ve seen so many folks saying they made their first ever donation in the last 24 hours! It’s so motivating to see new small-dollar donors join the grassroots movement!”
In addition, the Biden-aligned super PAC Future Forward secured $150 million in new commitments from major donors shortly after Biden’s announcement and endorsement of Harris. Meanwhile, Swing Left, which has launched a fund in support of the eventual Democratic nominee, reported raising over $160,000 within the same timeframe.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, expressed confidence that Harris’s campaign would be “very well financed” and pledged his support. Notable Democratic donors, including George and Alex Soros, have also come out in favor of Harris.
Historically, Biden’s fundraising peaked after his loss to Trump during a televised debate on June 27, which generated roughly $28 million in contributions in the following days. Following Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million, while Trump and his affiliated groups amassed $69 million around the same period, briefly crashing his campaign website due to the influx of donations. In total, pro-Biden groups raised $332.4 million from April to June, while pro-Trump groups collected $431.2 million, leaving Biden with $281 million and Trump with $336.2 million by the end of June.